It’s known as “doom scrolling”. That compulsive and irresistible urge to pick up your mobile phone, click on the news feed and start scrolling in search of the worst thing that may be happening to you or that is likely to happen – unless you take immediate action to seek help or change your ways. This affliction can strike at any time. But it’s probably the last thing you do at night and the first thing in the morning. It might hit again at breakfast or over dinner, when you’re walking in the street, chatting to others or watching TV, or as part of any combination of one or more of the above.
The graphic “news” headlines range from the considerably concerning to the terrifyingly terminal. “Stop eating this for good gut health, start eating that to reduce the risk of a killer cancer, watch out for these signs of approaching dementia, don’t ignore a symptom that could be a heart attack warning – the list is endless, meaning an outbreak of doom scrolling can last for hours.
And when you click on a link that could have some important personal advice, you read the story to the end – which is almost always where the actual point of the threatening revelation lurks, if there is actually a point, and either sigh with relief or decide there and then to make a new start. Or another new start, as soon as you’ve started the new start you resolved to make when reading the previous article.
Then you return to the main feed to start scrolling again. But why? Why this obsession with knowing what’s around the next corner? Is it that we want to think the best but can’t resist discovering the possible worst?
Our phones tell us everything, give us instant access to our family, friends and business associates, reveal what our favourite celebs are doing, so why not find out all we can about ourselves too? For those behind the “news” feeds, the answer is simpler – money.
The more clicks, the more money, the more profits of doom. Most of us confess we spend too much time on our phones, so is it time to stop scrolling and get a life – while we can?
